Eat your greens: Jamie Oliver led a campaign about the quality of school food

The Jamie Oliver effect will not work in tackling problems such as obesity, the Health Secretary said today.

Andrew Lansley told the British Medical Association in Brighton there must be an evidence-based approach to dealing with public health.

Mr Lansley, who has pledged to rename the Department of Health the Department of Public Health, said people needed to take responsibility for their own health, with the support of government.

"If we are constantly lecturing people and trying to tell them what to do, we will find that we undermine and are counter-productive."

Oliver triggered a national debate about the quality of school food in 2005 when he criticised Turkey Twizzlers.

But Mr Lansley said Oliver's approach had not had the desired effect, adding: "Jamie Oliver, quite rightly, was talking about trying to improve the diet of children in schools but the net effect was the number of children eating school meals in many places didn't go up, it went down.

"So then the schools said, It's okay to bring packed lunches but we've got to determine what's in the packed lunches'. The parents' response was that they gave children money and children are spending more money outside school, buying snacks in shops, instead of on school lunches."

He said that then people said shops near schools must be banned, adding: "Where do we end up with this?"

Mr Lansley said the consumption of things such as salty foods could be brought down only by changing people's behaviour. "This is a behaviour-change programme we're engaged in and if behaviour doesn't change, the likelihood is we will fail."